As partisans go, you won’t find any more loyal than Katy Atkinson. She’s a successful Republican political consultant in a dependably Republican state. She has chanted the mantra of small government, low taxes and fiscal responsibility for years. And she considers most of the party bigwigs her friends.

So it’s no fun for her to call former state Senate President John Andrews, former House Speaker Lola Spradley and other old pals duplicitous hypocrites.

But that’s exactly what she’s doing.

“What people are craving is leadership,” said Atkinson, spokeswoman for the Yes on C and D campaign. “As (former state Republican Party chairman) Bruce Benson said after the compromise was announced, ‘This isn’t politics. This is Colorado.”‘

Referendum C would authorize the state to keep $2.9 billion to $3.6 billion more than the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights allows over the next five years. Referendum D would let the state borrow $2.1 billion to pay for roads and the court settlement the state signed to provide for schools in the poorest parts of the state. They will be on the ballot Nov. 1.

A poll released today in The Denver Post shows support for the measures is weak, especially among Republicans, but Atkinson said she’s not worried.

“Early polling is not very predictive,” she said. “There’s a lot of volatility in an issue campaign.”

The campaign has focused on building a powerful grassroots organization with 215 organizations signed on to stump for the referendums. She said support is coming from the business community, Realtors, the medical associations, bankers, homebuilders, mental health care providers, nonprofits and AARP, as well as Republican Gov. Bill Owens and leaders from across the political spectrum.

The opposition spokesman, meanwhile, is the anti-tax Independence Institute’s Jon Caldara, Colorado’s version of the always-says-no character David Spade plays in the credit-card commercials.

Ask anything, his knee-jerk response is nada, nyet, nein, no way.

“Jon’s good at political guerrilla theater, but he hasn’t had a win in awhile,” said Atkinson.

She also dismissed Andrews, Spradley and other Republican opponents as motivated by raw political self-interest.

“What’s amazing is that some of my fellow Republicans – like John Andrews – voted for a measure in 2004 that would have meant no refunds for eight years,” she said. “That measure included all the things he says he hates about Referendum C – and more – and they would have lasted longer. That kind of hypocrisy is sad to see, especially in somebody I’ve always liked.”

Atkinson said in the last two years “probably 90 percent of Republican legislators” have voted for one of the proposed TABOR fixes, most of which went further than Referendum C.

“And for them to say now that there’s not a problem with the state’s fiscal situation, it’s just wrong,” she said.

Over the next few months, she said, the referendums campaign will present two very different visions for Colorado.

“There’s the vision our opponents are talking about, where John Andrews made the statement that higher education is a bargain for wealthy Coloradans and he thinks tuition should be doubled again.

“And our vision that college education should be affordable and not just for the elite.”

She said the choice is between a vision of safe roads and bridges, or a transportation system allowed to crumble; a vision of schools in the poorest districts getting money for long-overdue repairs, or desperate needs being ignored.

“Without naming names,” though Bob Beauprez and Marc Holtzman immediately come to mind, “a lot of Republicans looking at higher office down the line are focusing solely on a primary” in their opposition to the referendums, she said. “It could be the last election they ever win.”

A “boatload” of Republicans are stumping for the measures “because it’s the right thing to do,” she said.

The opponents, she said, “Well, they’re just dead wrong.”

Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.

A local union president slammed by Donald Trump on Twitter stood his ground Thursday, maintaining the president-elect gave false hope to hundreds of workers by inflating the number of jobs being saved at a Carrier Corp. factory in Indianapolis.